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Uprooted

Naomi Novik

Start date: March 1, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

Discussion: Stand Alone

Why we're reading this: Won the poll for the stand alone BOTM
[close] Won the poll for the stand alone BOTM

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Stand Alone

* Stand Alone- Maybe Meant to Be
By Bailey · 3 posts · 29 views

last updated Aug 18, 2025 12:04PM

* Stand Alone- The Summer of Broken Rules
By Bailey · 4 posts · 48 views

last updated Jul 08, 2025 08:57AM

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What Members Thought

Jan 25, 2016 Rachel rated it liked it

I feel about this in the same way I felt about Caraval. What a wonderfully, delicious, strange, and magical world and what a shame we had to travel it with Agnieszka.

I was not a fan of the writing style. It was rushed and very telling in this happened and then this happened so I did this...I was surprised this was an adult novel because it sounded young apart from one, unnecessary sex scene.

In this mythical world, the Dragon, the local wizard, chooses one girl every ten years to stay with him i I feel about this in the same way I felt about Caraval. What a wonderfully, delicious, strange, and magical world and what a shame we had to travel it with Agnieszka.

I was not a fan of the writing style. It was rushed and very telling in this happened and then this happened so I did this...I was surprised this was an adult novel because it sounded young apart from one, unnecessary sex scene.

In this mythical world, the Dragon, the local wizard, chooses one girl every ten years to stay with him in his tower. He always chooses the most beautiful and talented girl from the village, and the villagers assume he is keeping her there to use her despite the returned girls claiming he doesn't. But the returned girls never stay home very long so it is all very mysterious.

For this year, they all assume it will be the beautiful Kasiahe takes. But he chooses her dirty, clumsy friend, Agnieszka, instead to everyone's shock including her own.

Agnieszka is selectively stupid. I say this because sometimes she is very ingenious and brave, and other times you're like, "What the hell are you thinking, Girl?" Like when she first comes to the tower and assumes the Dragon is going to rape her, but decides to wander around aimlessly looking for food. And the Dragon is horribly cranky. He calls her stupid and useless. He's been holding young women captive for years with what eventually turns out to be a very flimsy excuse for doing so, and yet despite all that, Agnieszka has feelings for him because they have like magic hots for each other. I don't know.

But sometimes Agnieszka can be wonderfully smart, like when she makes a bed chain to escape the tower and turns a man to stone to keep corruption from spreading. Or she makes oxen out of mud. But then she's back to tripping all over herself going, "I don't know what to do," five seconds later. For that reason, I couldn't entirely be on her team.

But the Wood, the glorious wood, is the reason I kept reading this. It was this dark, horrible place where trees would swallow you whole and monstrous beasts would escape and carry you off in the night, turn your cattle into monster zombie cattle and spread into you like an infectious disease, making you one of its dark minions. Creepy as hell. I had to know the history of this Wood and its fate so badly, that I suffered with Agnieszka to do it, and I was not disappointed in the end. ...more

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Sep 28, 2020 Kassie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

I didn’t like this one as much as Spinning Silver. It felt like different versions of the same plot kept repeating throughout the book. It also felt really long and I kind of had to force myself to finish.

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